"Raymond Z. Gallun - The Eternal Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gallun Raymond Z)

To Ned Vince, it was all utterly insane and incomprehensible. A rodent, looking like a prairie-dog, a
little; but plainly possessing a high order of intelligence. And a voice whose soothingly familiar words
were more repugnant somehow, simply because they could never belong in a place as eerie as this.
Ned Vince did not know how Loy Chuk had probed his brain, with the aid of a pair of helmets, and
the black box apparatus. He did not know that in the latter, his language, taken from his own revitalized
mind, was recorded, and that Loy Chuk had only to press certain buttons to make the instrument express
his thoughts in common, long-dead English. Loy, whose vocal organs were not human, would have had
great difficulty speaking English words, anyway.
Ned's dark hair was wildly awry. His gaunt, young face held befuddled terror. He gasped in the thin
atmosphere. "I've gone nuts," he pronounced with a curious calm. "StarkтАФstarin' тАФnuts. . . ."
1. JOY'S box, with its recorded English words and its sonic detectors, could translate for its master,
too. As the man spoke, Loy read the illuminated symbols in his own language, flashed on a frosted crystal
plate before him. Thus he knew what Ned Vince was saying.
Loy Chuk pressed more keys, and the box reproduced his answer: "No, Ned, not nuts. Not a bit of
it! There are just a lot of things that you've got to get used to, that's all. You drowned about a million
years ago. I discovered your body. I brought you back to life. We have science that can do that. I'm Loy
Chuk. . . ."
It took only a moment for the box to tell the full story in clear, bold, friendly terms. Thus Loy sought,
with calm, human logic, to make his charge feel at home. Probably, though, he was a fool, to suppose
that he could succeed, thus.
Vince started to mutter, struggling desperately to reason it out. "A prairie dog," he said. "Speaking to
me. One million years. Evolution. The scientists say that people grew up from fishes in the sea. Prairie
dogs are smart. So maybe super-prairie-dogs could come from them. A lot easier than men from fish. . .
."
It was all sound logic. Even Ned Vince knew that. Still, his mind, tuned to ordinary, simple things,
couldn't quite realize all the vast things that had happened to himself, and to the world. The scope of it all
was too staggeringly big. One million years. God! ....
Ned Vince made a last effort to control himself. His knuckles tightened on the edge of the vat. "I
don't know what you've been talking about," he grated wildly. "But I want to get out of here! I want to go
back where I came from! Do you understandтАФwhoever, or whatever you are?"
Loy Chuk pressed more keys. "But you can't go back to the Twentieth Century," said the box. "Nor
is there any better place for you to be now, than Kar-Rah. You are the only man left on Earth. Those
men that exist in other star systems are not really your kind anymore, though their forefathers originated
on this planet. They have gone far beyond you in evolution. To them you would be only a senseless
curiosity. You are much better off with my peopleтАФour minds are much more like yours. We will take
care of you, and make you comfortable. .. ."
But Ned Vince wasn't listening, now. "You are the only man left on Earth." That had been enough for
him to hear. He didn't more than half believe it. His mind was too confused for conviction about anything.
Everything he saw and felt and heard might be some kind of nightmare. But then it might all be real
instead, and that was abysmal horror. Ned was no cowardтАФdeath and danger of any ordinary Earthly
kind, he could have faced bravely. But the loneliness here, and the utter strangeness, were hideous; like
being stranded alone on another world!
His heart was pounding heavily, and his eyes were wide. He looked across this eerie room. There
was a ramp there at the other side, leading upward in place of a stairway. Fierce impulse to escape this
nameless lair, and to try to learn the facts for himself, possessed him. He bounded out of the vat, and with
head down, dashed for the ramp.

HE had to go most of the way on his hands and knees, for the up-slanting passage was low. Excited
animal chucklings around him, and the occasional touch of a furry body, hurried his feverish scrambling.
But he emerged at last at the surface.